Critical Review by Critic

SOURCE: Review of Salomé.Critic 21, no. 638 (12 May 1894): 331.

In the following negative review of Salomé, the critic discusses Wilde's usage of dialogue and theme from various other literary sources.

The downward course of a certain current in English literature and art has probably not reached an end in Oscar Wilde's Salomé. Some one will, doubtless, arise who shall be as incoherent as Blake, as hysterical as Rossetti, as incapable of decent reserve as Swinburne, and as great a humbug as Wilde. But it is doubtful whether the latter's cleverness in patching up sham monsters can go much farther. A large part of his material he gets from the Bible, a little has once belonged to Flaubert. He borrows from Maeterlinck his trick of repeating stupid phrases until a glimpse of meaning seems almost a flash of genius...